"...it's kinda hard to explain. I could try?"

Occlus gestures for her to proceed.

"I... People are the only thing that matters. If there weren't any people, nothing would matter, because there would be no one there to care about things. So every time someone dies the universe matters a little less, there's a little less that's important. And it's almost never—necessary, it's almost never the only way to fix things, to kill someone. It seems like it's not a good tradeoff." She rubs her lips with one hand. "That's not all of it and it's missing some nuance but I guess it's a reasonable summary of—why I care."

"All people are weighted equally?"

"...that's part of where it's more complicated. More or less? Some people care about themselves less, some species are less individualistic. And there's the contingencies—like, if someone's trying to kill you, what gives them that right, you're worth as much as they are, people shouldn't have the right to decide whether you get to live and die, and also living in a world where there are self-defence rules is better and means less people die who don't want to and is overall stabler... And there's also an information thing, if I know for a fact someone is going to kill thousands of people then killing them is better than letting them do that but how sure am I that they're really gonna do that, and how sure am I that killing them is the best way to prevent it...

"So, uh, yeah, with caveats."

"With that attitude you will end up dead."

"Why?"

"You doubt that your own life is worth more than another. Doubt leads to hesitation. Hesitation is vulnerability. This doubt prevents you from acting as strongly and swiftly as you ought to secure your own safety. That must be your primary concern. If you are lost, then all the rest is."

"I... can see that happening, yeah, but I don't think that's what's actually going to happen. I think I have enough of a self-preservation instinct to not question it much in an actual battle, and I think that the way this belief will express itself in battle is in tactical decisions more than indecision? But I might be full of it. And might need more instruction in how to do that to actually do it effectively enough."

"By the time it comes to battle, it will be too late. Strike first, decisively. The next time, your enemies will hesitate that much longer, allowing you time to do it again."

"I don't take it for granted that I'll have enemies, by the time... this is all over."

"You will always have enemies. There will always be someone who resents you, or who covets your power, or your position. Or you will be standing in their way, intentionally or no, rightfully or no."

"Okay, but... the Jedi and their Republic manage to be big and powerful and have powerful people with a lot less murder."

"On the surface, perhaps. But their social structure is ossified and politicized. To ascend, it is a question of who you know rather than what. And if you displease them, you are shunted aside with little or no recourse."

"Fair, but my point wasn't that they're—a desirable state of affairs, but rather that they're a different system where people don't murder everyone left and right and it's pretty unlikely that any one difference between them and us is the cause of that. It doesn't look like the natural, inevitable state of affairs is everyone wanting to kill everyone else."

"The choice between killing your rival and assigning them to a backwater trading post is simply the accidental product of growing up in one place and not another. The principle does not change. Were I embroiled in a Republic power struggle, I would be advising you to open your eyes to dangers peculiar to that situation, to beware of those who profess themselves friendly in order to ride the wake of your rise or snatch you down to gain prestige of their own, and to act against them before they can. While we are here, I am telling you that the way to survive, to win, is to kill first. In either case, you must be willing to do what is necessary to secure your self before you can act on any other goal."

"I really didn't expect you to say that."

"Why?"

"It's—I'm not sure how to describe it. I think I was just wrong about why I thought you did things and how I thought you thought about them?"

"Did you think I enjoyed killing for its own sake?"

"No, that's not it. I didn't think—being safe—was the overriding goal."

"It is the first and most basic. Everything else follows."

"And you don't think there's a way to be safe without completely erasing other people from existence? Never mind the people who want to erase you, just the grunts and pawns who had no choice?"

"I'm sure there is. But it is impractical to expend so much effort on it."

"And how sure are you of that?"